


necrophobia

by SidewaysClarinet



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Angst, Character Death, Curses, Demonic Possession, Everyone is fair game :))), Gen, Haunted Houses, Major Character Injury, Murder Mystery, Starvation, Triggering Content; check chapter warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28040031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SidewaysClarinet/pseuds/SidewaysClarinet
Summary: The plan was simple; as a big graduation send off, they would be visiting a haunted house for a night. However, they quickly discover that the house is cursed to kill all of its occupants within seven days, and the inhabiting demon has more than enough power to go through with it. There's only one way to avoid certain death-and of course, it's to make a sacrifice. What else?
Comments: 19
Kudos: 31





	1. day one

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This is a pretty big step out of my normal fanfiction genres to write, but I had the idea and it simply refused to leave me alone. I am hoping that posting this chapter will motivate me into finishing the last ones, so updates may be a little inconsistent lol! Regardless, I hope you all enjoy.
> 
> There are no content warnings necessary for this chapter.

“A haunted house?”

Rin’s eyes remain eager even when Yukio shoots him an unimpressed look, his eyebrow raised in that look that seems to say ‘This idea is stupid, and you should feel stupid’ somehow without even saying the words aloud. Rin is immune to this look, however, and snatches his brother’s hands away from his laptop to hold them.

“C’mon! It’ll be like, a big huzzah before we graduate!” Rin pleads, even as Yukio tries to wrestle his hands away. “Don’t you wanna do something fun before we all move away and forget about each other again?”

“What’s he goin’ on about?” Ryuji gives the other teen an odd look as soon as he steps into the cram classroom, his bag slung over his shoulder and a bento box in his hands. It had become an unspoken (duty) for them to eat together in their old classroom for every meal break of the school day, and for the most part, they had yet to break that tradition—no matter how odd some of the other occupants were.

“A haunted house!” Rin cries, throwing Yukio’s hands aside to instead cling onto Ryuji’s sleeve. “You want to, don’t you? It’d be so cool! I even have the perfect one picked out, and it could be like a bonding experience!”

Yukio gives Rin a bit of an irritated look as he eases the reddened fingermarks left behind on his hands.“Nii-san, we’ll still be seeing each other after high school. Did you forget that we would be working together with True Cross?”

“But that’ll be different,” Rin insists with a frown. He crosses his arms, earning even more odd looks from Shiemi and Izumo as they enter the classroom as well. Izumo makes a beeline straight for his usual spot, while Shiemi hesitates by Rin’s side.

“What’ll be different?” she asks.

“Shiemi!” Rin’s eyes widen as he turns to her. “You want to go to a haunted house, right? All of us together?”

“Don’t ask her, you know she won’t be honest!” Izumo calls, scowling at him. “No, from both of us.”

Shiemi gives him an apologetic look, but doesn’t disagree with Izumo, instead stepping away to take her seat. Rin pouts. “Buzzkill. You guys don’t get it, life will be totally different after high school! We won’t be seein’ each other every day, it’ll just be hangouts and missions! And we might not even have  _ those _ after a while.”

“You say that like you would’ve known what life after middle school would have been like if not for Mephisto sneaking you into True Cross,” Yukio says, dryly. 

Renzou is the next to enter the classroom alongside Konekomaru, and he gives a sympathetic little hiss as he passes by Rin. “Ouch, that hurt even me. Whatever Okumura-sensei’s against, I’m in.”

“Typical,” Yukio sighs. 

Renzou gives him a wink as he plops down into a seat by Izumo. “Only for you.”

“You don’t even know what Okumura’s askin’ for,” Ryuji points out, digging his chopsticks into his food. “Might be bugs.”

“The spirit of the irritating troublemaker within me will help me overcome my fears,” Renzou says, faux solemnly. Konekomaru promptly slaps the back of his head. “Ouch! Koneko-san!”

“I think it could be fun, honestly,” Konekomaru says, smiling serenely even as Renzou tenderly grabs the back of his own head. “We’ll be held to much stricter standards when we graduate, so why not have some fun now?”

Yukio gives Konekomaru a look, pursing his lips. “I thought you might be backing me up here.”

Konekomaru’s smile turns apologetic. “Sorry, Okumura-kun.”

“Well, that’s three votes for yes, including me!” Rin turns away from Yukio and towards the rest of the group, holding up his fingers. “And three for no, so we’re tied!”

“Suguro-kun,” Yukio pleads, looking in his direction.

Ryuji, surprisingly, only gives a shrug. “I second Konekomaru. I think it could be fun, if we don’t get arrested.”

“Ha! So four yeses!” 

Yukio leans his head into his hands, rubbing at his forehead. “Can someone at least text Paku-san and Godaiin-san to get their opinions?”

“I’ll get it!” Shiemi says, pulling her phone out with a smile. It’s only seconds before their group chat pings with the question she sends, and then another few pings ring out. “They want to know where? And when? And for how long?”

Six pairs of expectant eyes turn towards Rin, who looks offended. “What? I have that all planned out, how dumb do you think I am? The house is just twenty minutes from campus, and we’ll be staying overnight sometime this weekend!”

“Overnight?” Ryuji asks, brows furrowing. “You do know we should be studying for cram finals next week, right?”

“Oh, c’mon, we’ve been studying for those for  _ weeks _ . We can afford to take a break.”

“It would be a good stress reliever,” Konekomaru adds, pointedly not looking at the despairing look that Yukio sends him. “Better results on finals!”

“And if it were all of us, it wouldn’t be so scary,” Shiemi says, but she looks at Izumo when she does so. The other girl’s expression turns a strange mix of irritated and bewildered.

Renzou nods along, eyes bright. “Yeah, and we could bring snacks and drinks and stuff! Flashlights, scary stories, it could be totally sick.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Rin laughs. “So that makes five for yes! And two for no, being the losers Yukio and Izumo.”

“Well, I’m not leaving Shiemi alone,” Izumo huffs, crossing her arms. “You’ll terrorize her, I just know it. I’m in, but know I don’t want to be!”

Rin turns around to face his brother, and his eyes are utterly mischievous. “That leaves just you, Yukiooo!”

“Fine, fine!” Yukio throws his hands up before Rin can pester him further, giving another sigh. “If it’s what everyone wants, then I can’t say anything.”

“Yes!” Rin cheers. He turns to point a finger at Shiemi, grinning widely. “Tell Paku and Godaiin to meet us here on Saturday after classes, and bring an overnight bag! We’ve got a haunted house to visit!”

* * *

“Is this seriously the place you want us to be spending the night at?” Izumo asks, unimpressed. She peers into the decrepit house, frowning at what little of the rot and dirt that she can see through the window. It’s utterly disgusting to look at, much less to step into or even to stay the night at.

Rin, however, looks as excited as the day he suggested the idea, and is already getting to work on getting the door open. “Yep! Cool, isn’t it?”

“It looks like it’ll be freezing cold at night,” Yukio points out, already shivering in the jacket he has pulled tight over his arms. He stands with the rest of the group at the entrance of the house, idly watching Rin in his efforts to pry the door knob loose from the rust it had set into. 

Paku, ever the optimist, giggles at that. “That just means we’ll have to cuddle close at night, huh?”

“A girl after my own heart!” Renzou crows. The two of them look at each other and laugh, which of course ends up devolving into a friendly war of finger pokes and shoulder jabs. Godaiin narrowly dodges them, but smiles good naturedly, and steps away from the group to join Rin.

“Need some help?” he asks.

“Nah, I got it!” True to Rin’s word, he yanks the door open just afterwards, grinning at the door knob as it hangs limply from the wood that it was previously attached to. “Problem solved, heh.”

“More like problem destroyed,” Godaiin chuckles, nudging Rin with his shoulder before the two of them step past the door and into the house. The rest of the group follows close behind, in various levels of hesitance and excitement.

The house is no less unimpressive on the inside than it is on the outside, complete with wood panels that creak ominously and the squeaking of rodents just out of sight. Rin leads the charge ahead, but even he looks a bit hesitant at the utterly decrepit state of the first floor. He bats spiderwebs out of the way for those behind him, before coming to a stop at the middle of the room.

“Well,” he says, glancing at the yellowing wallpaper before looking back at the group. “Home sweet home, for twenty-four hours!”

Ryuji is the first to speak, giving a snort as he starts to explore the rest of the first floor. “Surprised you know how to count that high.”

“You know, you are cruel to me! And I have done nothing to deserve it!” Rin huffs, dropping his bag down on the floor to follow after Ryuji. The other teens stay huddled in a group at the center of the apparent living room, though Konekomaru’s curious gaze draws him out of the throng and towards the kitchen. Renzou follows close behind and does a valiant job of acting like the trail of ants by his foot doesn’t bother him.

“This seems like a pretty modern house,” Konekomaru muses, drawing a hand along the dusty surface of the countertops. “I wonder why it didn’t just get refurbished? It seems nice enough, besides all the… dirt.”

Renzou shivers at the sight of the pantry door, cracked open just enough for ominous squeaking to come forth from its depths. “I dunno, but it’s totally wrecked now.”

Konekomaru gives a little frown as he wipes his fingers off. “It’s weird, isn’t it? It doesn’t look like it’s old enough to be  _ this  _ destroyed.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s in a neighborhood or anythin’,” Renzou points out. “It probably just got forgotten about.”

“Ah, I guess you’re right.”

“Hey!” Izumo’s voice rings out from the living room. The two boys peer past the doorway to see her, Shiemi, Paku, and Godaiin working at spreading a tarp over the floor. “Come help out already! We can explore once we set up.”

“Coming, your highness!” Renzou coos, leaving the kitchen behind to join the rest of them in the living room. Konekomaru trails behind and picks up one of the sides of the tarp with Renzou, and as a team, they get the fabric set up over the floor of the living room. It covers enough of the old floorboards that they feel safe setting their sleeping bags up, tossing pillows and snacks and drinks about until they have a comfortable set up going.

It’s when they’re all settling down, setting up a lantern in the dimming light of the sunset, that Rin and Ryuji finally return. They’re both covered in cobwebs, and Rin’s eyes widen as he looks at the set up.

“You guys got everything done!” he says, grinning.

“Yeah, no thanks to you,” Izumo grumps. She’s curled under a blanket beside Shiemi and Paku, while Renzou has already dragged Konekomaru and Godaiin into a game of cards. Yukio is bent over a stack of papers, and he’s jostled a bit as Rin plops down next to him. “Where’d you two go, anyways?”

“Just explorin’,” Rin hums. He’s busy working at ripping open a chocolate bar, though it isn’t long until Yukio has to snatch it out of his hands to open it for him. Rin gives him a grateful look, then looks up at Izumo as he takes a bite out of it. “There’s two floors, y’know! No basement though, either it’s hidden or the house just doesn’t have one.”

“I think I like it better with just two floors,” Shiemi says, smiling even though she looks a bit nervous. Both of her hands are held by Izumo and Paku, as Izumo scrolls idly on her phone.

“Less to keep up with,” Renzou adds, squinting at his hand of cards. 

Godaiin snickers at him. “Your turn, Shima-kun.”

“I know!” the teen whines. He shifts, looks at his cards, and then splays them out on the blanket beneath them. “There!” Both Godaiin and Konekomaru lay down their hands as well, and Renzou lets out a dramatic groan as he realizes that he’s lost. “Aw, c’mon!”

“C’mon you lost, fair and square,” Konekomaru chides. “Don’t be a sore loser.”

Rin nods, grabbing up a flashlight. “Yeah, get over it already, we got scary stories to tell!” 

“Scary stories?” Izumo looks up from her phone, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah!” Rin nods his head eagerly, pulling his own phone out and unlocking it. “I’ve been saving these up all week!”

“So that’s what you’re doing when you disappear to do ‘homework’,” Yukio mutters, drawing a few snickers from the group at Rin’s expense. 

Renzou reaches across the circle to poke Yukio’s knee, grinning. “I dunno, you checked your tissue boxes recently?”

“Gross!”

“Ew!”

“Shima-san!”

* * *

The night passes in scary stories and card games, confessions of drama and dirt talk of teachers (which Yukio reacts disapprovingly to, but he begins to spill information almost voraciously when pushed enough). They talk into the late hours of the night, giggling and laughing and teasing until they’re so tired that they can barely see straight.

Konekomaru and Godaiin are the first to fall asleep, leaned up against each other as they doze off. The girls follow soon after in their little huddle, and Ryuji is next, far beyond his self-assigned bedtime. Renzou passes out on accident, his phone toppled over close by his face, which leaves Rin and Yukio alone in still being awake.

They’re not far from falling asleep, however. They lie next to each other in their sleeping bags, where Rin looks idly at the ceiling as Yukio scrolls through text messages on his phone. The soft light of the lantern makes Rin’s eyes seem almost aglow as he glances over at Yukio, smiling softly.

“Hey, thanks for coming along,” he whispers, careful not to wake up any of their friends. “I’m really glad we could do this.”

Yukio blinks, a little startled by the seriousness in his twin’s voice, but his mouth twists into a wry little grin. “I’m glad we did, too.”

Rin chuckles a bit, then goes back to looking at the ceiling. It isn’t long until Yukio is setting his phone down and pulling his glasses off, and cuddled between their friends, the two brothers finally drift off to sleep.


	2. day two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! The real plot begins in this chapter :D

Ryuji, as always, is the first of the group to wake up in the morning. Despite the unspoken permission he has to sleep in as long as he’d like to, his body still wakes him up at the crack of dawn, hours before even one of the others will be rousing. He groans as he realizes that the sun is just barely peeking over the horizon—and not only that, he’s also totally alone in being awake in the creepy haunted house.

He tries to distract himself with scrolling on his phone, only to realize that he has absolutely no signal in the godforsaken dump. Not a single bar, and no data to access. He wipes a hand over his eyes, exasperated, and instead pulls up a stupid game on his phone that he only ever downloaded because Rin had demanded he do so.

It distracts him for a while, long enough for the sun to finally light up the house somewhat, but eventually it grows pretty boring and repetitive to do. He switches over to the card deck instead and sets up a game of solitaire, and that entertains him enough in the quiet house to wait patiently for his friends to wake up.

Surprisingly, out of the whole group, Godaiin is the one to wake up next. His hair is a total rat’s nest, and Ryuji fights down the urge to snicker at it as the other boy manages to sit up.

“What time issit?” he asks, tiredly.

Ryuji flips his phone over and checks it. “‘bout 9am or so. Sleep well?”

“As well as I can on the floor,” Godaiin chuckles, rubbing at his eyes. “Man, I really gotta use the bathroom.”

Ryuji sets his cards down on the floorboards and takes another cursory glance around the house, fighting a shiver at the shadowed corner where the stairs lie. “Outside is probably your best bet.”

“Right,” Godaiin agrees. He manages to wriggle himself out of the blanket he’s sharing with Konekomaru without waking the other teen up, tiptoeing around the rest of the group on his way out. Ryuji looks down to his cards idly as the sound of Godaiin’s footsteps fade away, followed a few seconds later by the jiggling of the front door handle.

The door jiggles again, and again, and he hears a faint grunt as something thumps up against it. He looks away from his cards and towards the front door, where Godaiin wears a confused expression as he looks at the door.

“All good?” he calls to Godaiin.

The other teen gives a noncommittal little shrug, before grabbing the door knob again and pulling it back with all of his weight. The door doesn’t give even an inch, and Godaiin looks up to Ryuji. “Help?”

“Sure thing.”

He stands with the sound of his knees and ankles popping, and idly rolls a crick out of his neck as he crosses the house to the door. Godaiin steps aside so that he can grip the handle himself, and though the doorknob twists, it doesn’t open any when Ryuji yanks on it. He frowns and tugs at it again to no avail, then gives it another sharp yank.

“Okumura-kun was having trouble with it yesterday,” Godaiin murmurs. “It might be stuck again.”

“Maybe,” Ryuji says idly, wiping his palms off on his jeans. He’s almost tempted to try harder at opening it, but Godaiin is already turning away from the door. “You gonna look elsewhere?”

“Yeah, I might check around the first floor or something.”

Ryuji nods and returns back to the cards on the floor, leaving Godaiin alone to explore the first floor for himself. He hadn’t got the chance to do so the day before, and now he’s almost glad that he didn’t. The first floor is beyond creepy, and he rubs his own arms as he searches the hallways for some sort of bathroom.

“If some sorta ghost pops out, I’m gonna scream,” Godaiin murmurs to himself. It’s a flimsy attempt to ease some of his anxiety, but surprisingly, talking to himself helps. “I’m gonna scream so loud, mom and dad are gonna hear it all the way in Ibaraki.”

He manages to find a door leading off the hallway, and when he pokes it open with the tip of his shoe, he recognizes the familiar sight of a sink and toilet. Problem no. 1 solved, but as he twists the handle to the sink and sees the utter nothingness that comes out of the faucet, another problem presents itself. No running water.

Godaiin looks over at the dirt-covered, nasty toilet, and is suddenly grateful that he’s not a girl.

A few moments and an uncomfortable aborted movement to flush later, he’s returning back to the living room where the rest of his friends are, only to see that a few more have woken up. Izumo is brushing through her hair with a small comb, and Konekomaru is trying in vain to rub the glasses-marks off of the side of his face. 

“Any idea when Okumura-kun’s gonna wake up?” he asks them, only to receive muffled laughter in return.

“Okumura-kun could sleep through the apocalypse,” Konekomaru chuckles, giving up on the reddened marks on his temple. “Good luck seeing him awake before noon.”

“Don’t forget about Okumura-sensei,” Izumo whispers, pointing a mischievous finger at the younger twin. Yukio’s glasses had fallen off sometime during the night, leaving no filter between his tired, blank eyes and the sight of his older brother, still blissfully passed out. Yukio picks Rin’s hand up from where it had landed on his face and promptly throws it right back at his brother.

That doesn’t wake him up, but the very harsh and very sharp poke that Yukio delivers to his stomach certainly does. Rin jerks awake, eyes wide and hands flailing about. Of course, his hand smacks poor Paku, who startles awake and manages to inadverdently scare Shiemi awake as well. Shiemi brushes her bangs out of her eyes, surprise transforming into pity as she sees Paku tenderly rubbing her nose.

Yukio, for his part, looks far more apologetic than his brother. “Sorry about that, Shiemi-san, Paku-san.”

“Where’s  _ my _ apology?” Rin whines, rubbing at his eyes.

“You still haven’t given it,” Paku says dryly. “But you’re forgiven.”

His eyes widen as he sees the redness around her nose, and his cheeks promptly darken. “Sorry!”

“If you want someone to gripe at, get at Shima-san,” Ryuji snickers, pointing at the passed-out form of his childhood friend. Renzou, of course, managed to sleep through the whole thing, but Izumo holds a finger up to shush them as she sneaks up on him. 

“Shima,” she whispers, up close to his ear. “Yaozou-san says he found your stash under your bed.”

He springs awake, almost comically. “Kin-nii planted it!”

However, his panic at seeing his father quickly dies down when he hears the laughter of his friends. His expression turns to a scowl, and he rolls his eyes.

“Very funny.”

“Hey, you were the last one asleep!” Rin giggles. “Least it wasn’t me this time.”

“Okay, well, before this turns into a brawl,” Godaiin cuts in, grinning. “Okumura-kun, will you come help me with the door again? I think it’s stuck.”

“Yeah, get on that,” Izumo says, pulling her hair into a braid as the two of them leave the group behind. “I don’t want to be in this grimy place any longer than we have to be.”

“Oh, don’t act like you didn’t have fun, Izumo-chan,” Renzou teases, sticking his tongue out at her. She only raises an eyebrow at him before promptly shoving his face away, ignoring his squawk to instead look at Shiemi.

“You need a brush?” she asks, holding her comb out.

Shiemi’s eyes widen as she looks at it. “Oh! Yes, thank you-”

_ Whump! _

__ The group startles at the sound of a body hitting the floor, and their heads turn to look at where Godaiin and Rin are standing by the door. Well, Godaiin is standing by the door, laughing so hard that he’s crying while Rin writhes on the floor.

“The hell did you do?” Ryuji calls.

“He tried to open the door,” Godaiin wheezes out between laughter. “And his dumb ass fell!”

“It’s not funny!” Rin whines petulantly.

Yukio rolls his eyes and puts his glasses back into place, standing up from the floor to go help his brother by the door. He heaves Rin up onto his feet, and the two of them look at the door while Godaiin wipes tears away from his eyes. 

“I swear, that thing’s gotta be glued into place,” Rin grumps, crossing his arms childishly. He glares at the door like it had been hard to open on purpose, and Yukio rolls his eyes again before reaching a hand up to push Rin’s bangs into his eyes. His twin squawks at the sudden blindness as Yukio instead bends over to look at the doorknob, squinting at it. 

“It might just be defective,” he comments idly. “I wonder if there’s a back door?”

“I can go look?” Rin offers. Yukio gives him a nod, and the three of them step away from the door, instead returning back to the living room with the rest of the group. They decide unanimously to split up and try to find another way out of the house, and the sentiment goes unspoken as they stand up in various levels of sleepiness.

A backdoor is located, but within minutes, they find that there’s no luck in getting that door open either. They try to yank that open a few times, and nothing. They try the front door once again, and nothing. They try the various windows across the house, and absolutely nothing.

“What the hell is goin’ on?” Renzou throws his hands up, utterly exasperated. “We’ve been tryin’ for hours and none of these damn things are opening up! It’s like they all got glued in!”

“How could they be glued?” Shiemi asks from the floor, frowning. Izumo is busy trying to untangle her hair from behind, and despite the leisurely state of the teens as they sprawl across the floor for a break, there’s an undercurrent of confusion. “We got in through the front door, didn’t we?”

Paku looks over at Rin. “Are you sure you didn’t break it, Okumura-kun?”

“I’m sure!” He holds his hands up as if accused of some wrong, though he looks almost guilty. “At least, I think so? I didn’t pull it too hard, did I?”

“You pulled the entire doorknob off,” Godaiin says, smiling wryly.

“Nice going, dumbass,” Ryuji snorts.

Abruptly, Rin’s eyes widen. “Say that again.”

Ryuji looks up from his game of solitaire, raising an eyebrow. “Nice going, dumbass?”

“No, not you!” Rin huffs, crossing his arms. “I meant Godaiin! Why would I ask you to repeat that?”

“You pulled the entire doorknob off?” Godaiin repeats, confused. There’s a second of hesitation before his eyes widen as well, and he catches on. “But there was a doorknob when we checked!”

“Exactly!” Rin cries. “How did the doorknob get replaced?”

It finally registers for the rest of the teens that something about the house is distinctly not right. Either someone had managed to replace the doorknob overnight without them hearing it, or there was something more sinister at foot—and considering their occupation, it was certainly a possibility. The lighthearted air in the room seeped to sap away bit by bit, and nine pairs of eyes trained on to the innocuous looking doorknob, very noticeably unbroken. 

“I don’t know of any sort of door demon,” Yukio says quietly. “Besides Sir Pheles, but I sincerely doubt one of his kin would be this far away from the academy.”

Rin’s hand twitches for the familiar length of his sword, but he’d left it in the dorms, of course. All that’s left for him is his natural flames, and his fingertips begin to flicker with blue light. “Should I try to burn it down?”

“No way, dumbass!” Izumo hisses, reaching forward to smack the flames off of his fingers. “We could be in some sort of pocket space!”

“And even if we weren’t, pissin’ a possible demon off isn’t the best way to go about shit!” Ryuji adds, scowling. Rin, having thoroughly got the point, draws his flames back and sulks a little petulantly. Instead, Yukio stands, pulling a gun from a hidden holster on the inside of his jacket. 

The group gapes at him, and Rin is the first to speak. “You brought your guns?!”   
Yukio shrugs, but his eyes are sharp on the door. “It came in handy, didn’t it?”

The others aren’t able to criticize his paranoia this time, and instead begin to warily stand up from the floor. Shiemi reaches gentle hands out to guide Godaiin and Paku to the center of the group, before taking a summoning paper that Izumo hands her.

Yukio is the first to act. The sharp crack of his gun firing off echoes in the house, and though his aim is deadly true, there is no damage to the door. He frowns and fires off another round but the door is unaffected, even though they had all seen him take the shot.

“Is the whole house impervious?” Konekomaru asks, already looking to examine the other walls. “Try the windows.”

Yukio nods, and the teens duck down a bit as he points the nozzle of the gun up to one of the windows. However, just like the door, the window is left completely unaffected by the bullet that ricochets off of it. Yukio fires at the wall, the ceiling, the floor, but nothing is even dented, much less scuffed.

“It ain’t just the door, then,” Ryuji murmurs. 

“Whoever heard of a house demon?” Renzou whispers, incredulous. He holds his staff closer to himself, peering up at the ceiling. How could something be so rotted, and yet impervious to damage? It had to be demons, but he’d never heard of one like this—from True Cross, or the Illuminati.

“Kamiki-chan, try your foxes?” Konekomaru asks, looking over at her. She raises an eyebrow at him, but ultimately shrugs, calling Uke and Mike forth from her summoning papers. The foxes, thankfully, sense the tension in the room and don’t give Izumo their typical attitude, instead following her quiet order to attack the door.

When no amount of swiping or clawing at the walls brings any results, they turn back to her, growling and sniffling out something that has Rin snickering and Izumo scowling.

“I don’t need you to tell me if it’s weird,” she huffs. “Just go back if you’re not gonna be any help.”

Uke and Mike, as defiant as they always were, promptly disappear into smoke. Izumo looks at Konekomaru, giving a ‘what can you do?’ sort of look. He frowns, reconsidering his plan, before turning to Renzou. “Can you give Bon your staff, and try with Yamantaka?”

It continues on like that until the sun is dipping down again, in turns of demons and weapons and supernatural efforts to put some damage to the house’s interior. Nothing brings them any results, and it’s with the dismissal of Shiemi’s Nii that they finally stop to take a break.

“None of this is working,” Yukio sighs, looking at the residual smoke left behind from Nii. “My next guess is that it’s either a bigger or more invisible type, and we’ll have to search the house to figure it out. Since it doesn’t look like the demon is malicious, we can just leave that for tomorrow.”

“Another night in this house?” Paku asks, looking a bit pale.

“If you’re scared, you can just cuddle up to me,” Renzou hums, elbowing her. It’s enough to get a laugh out of Paku, and she shoves him back, her anxiousness easing.

Yukio looks at the two of them, fighting down a smile. “Yes, we’ll have to spend another night. Sleep well, I don’t know what we’ll be seeing when we start searching around tomorrow.”


	3. day three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hi hi! new update! :D

This time, Yukio is the first to wake up in the morning, and he is unsurprised to see Konekomaru and Ryuji quickly rousing soon after him. He stands as they begin to rub the sleep out of their eyes, slipping his jacket on and looking warily around the house. Despite spending two nights in there now, it wasn’t becoming any less creepy; in fact, knowing that there could be a demon anywhere thoroughly unsettles him.

His hand slips into his jacket to wrap around the familiar handle of his gun, just resting his fingers on it as he begins to search the first floor. His dual-colored eyes track every inch of the ground, the walls, the furniture. As he walks in the silence of the morning, he finds that the only suspicious thing about the house is the complete and utter lack of anything suspicious.

At first glance, everything is terribly mundane. It’s a rundown, foreclosed old building, and that’s evident in everything about it. Whatever they haven’t touched yet is covered in dust and grime with no fingerprints or other imprints to be seen—everything looks completely untouched. There’s no sign of other humans or creatures, but he knows that can’t be true.

Yukio narrows down on one of the side rooms, where an old TV with a smashed-in screen rests. There’s a handful of chairs and a couch, all of which are equally covered in caked-on dust. He reaches a hand down to draw a finger across the fabric, and looks at the grey coating on his fingertip. 

“Regular dust…” he murmurs to himself, frowning. Neither the consistency nor the color is consistent with coal tars, so it’s unlikely that it’s kin of Astarte. It gives him a start, but not a very good one; there’s still seven other demon kings to cross out, and an assortment of demons unassociated with the kings. He wipes his finger off on the couch, and moves on.

A cursory glance around the rest of the room gives him no more answers, and so he finally leaves it. It’s bright enough out now that he can see Konekomaru out in the hallway, and the other teen nods at him as he comes out of the kitchen.

“Nothing in here,” Konekomaru says, quietly. “I didn’t see any traces of hobgoblins or coal tars anywhere, either.”

“So that takes out Astarte and Amaimon,” Yukio says with a frown, reaching a hand up to rub at his chin. 

Ryuji appears behind Konekomaru, leaning his arm on the doorframe above his smaller friend. “I wonder if it ain’t maybe a bigger type demon? Those tiny ones don’t seem smart enough to be hidin’ this well.”

Yukio nods, humming as his mind flashes through their options. “We could do a check for smaller demons, just to confidently cross them off of our list. We’ll need blood, though.”

With Rin, Izumo, and Renzou having the fastest healing out of the group, they’re roused for the job as soon as they’re awake. Once they agree to trying, Rin uses the sharp tip of his claw to make a shallow cut across one of their fingertips, and the three of them split up to cover the house. 

Shiemi follows warily behind Izumo in contrast to the taller girl’s confident step, watching as Izumo smears little marks of blood across the walls and whatever furniture she can get her hands on. All Shiemi can think of is the disastrous hobgoblin incident from the beginning of their first year, and keeps her summoning papers held tight in her hands as she walks. The verse to call Nii up is prepared and on her lips.

But to her surprise, nothing comes crashing forth at the scent of Izumo’s blood. She can’t hear anything from Renzou and his back up team, or from Rin, and the tension in her shoulders begins to ease at this. It makes her a bit nervous that the demon isn’t something easy like a coal tar or goblin, but at least it means that they won’t get swarmed.

They explore as much of the first floor as they can, leaving the top floor for Rin to search with Yukio at his side. When nothing comes out to attack them, they reunite with Renzou and the others in the living room, waiting anxiously for the Okumura twins to return from the second floor. They’d gone up by themselves, and though there’s no shouting or sounds of an attack, they know that it can go south at any second. 

But minutes pass, and the only sounds that they hear are incoming footsteps down the stairs. Yukio appears first, his gun held loosely in his hand and pointed towards the floor, and Rin shows up close behind him, licking away the residual blood at his fingertips. He stops, flushing, when Renzou gives him a grossed-out look.

“Sorry,” he says, sheepish. “Anyways, nothing upstairs.”

“Of course it couldn’t be easy,” Renzou sighs, and though he’s a bit dramatic about it, the others agree silently. Goblins and coal tars were annoying, but at least easy to deal with. With this, it’s incredibly unlikely that the real demon they’re facing is kin of Amaimon or Astarte. 

“I think this must have something to do with Sir Pheles’ kin,” Konekomaru says, frowning. “Think about it, what other aspects are able to create potential pocket spaces?”

“You think this is a pocket space?” Yukio asks, but he looks thoughtful about it, as if Konekomaru had presented him something new to consider. 

Konekomaru nods. “I do. I mean, it’s a secluded space with no access to the outside-” He holds his phone up, where ‘No Signal’ is displayed on the screen, then at the doors. “-and nothing we do actually affects the interior. It sounds like one of Sir Pheles’ pocket spaces.”

“Yeah, like that big clock he shoved me in!” Rin adds. Shiemi, beside him, nods fervently.

“It felt weird, too,” she says. “Like the air? It felt like something was off, you know? It feels almost like that here.”

“And of course Sir Pheles is evasive about his verses,” Yukio sighs, rubbing at his glasses. “Miwa-kun, Ryuji-kun, how much of Job do you have memorized?”

The two teens look at each other, and then Ryuji speaks. “The whole book, between the two of us.”

“Good. Will you two work on reciting it here in the living room?”

They nod, and then Rin perks up. “I can stay here and defend them if somethin’ comes running. Anyone else?”

Godaiin silently raises his hand, though that’s of little surprise to anyone. Even if Rin weren’t the safest defense around, it was rare for Godaiin to go anywhere without him. Izumo raises her hand as well, but it’s equally as unlikely for her to miss a chance to tease Ryuji about being a damsel in distress while he’s chanting. The tall teen rolls his eyes as she does.

Yukio looks critically at the rest of the teens, eyes calculating. “Alright, the rest of us will spread across the house and watch from there. Shima-kun, will you and Shiemi-san look upstairs?”

Shiemi nods, but Renzou looks much more reluctant. He doesn’t protest, though, and joins Shiemi by the base of the stairs. The sound of Konekomaru and Ryuji’s chanting is their send off, and Nii hops atop Shiemi’s shoulder as the two of them ascend the steps.

“I hate that he sends me up here,” Renzou sighs, looking warily at the top floor. “He knows about me and bugs. He’s gotta be doing it on purpose.”

Shiemi muffles a giggle behind her hand, smiling. “Don’t worry, Shima-kun, I’ll protect you.”

He rolls his eyes good-naturedly, but he can’t deny that the assurance is actually helpful, in a way. The two of them stay close next to each other as they explore the top floor, keeping their ears peeled open for the sounds of rustling demons. 

A few minutes pass with nothing appearing, and the two of them relax in the almost peaceful silence of the second floor. Renzou thinks it’s creepy, sure, but it’s the first time all weekend that he’d been able to just sit in the quiet. A group of nine people was pretty noisy, and he liked having the chance to just laze about leisurely.

Shiemi spends her time teasing Nii with dangling leaves of aloe, and so Renzou finds himself free to look around uninhibited. He peeks into bedrooms and makes faces at the grimy beds, and fake gags at the sight of the musty, disgusting-looking toilets. There are books scattered about with pages too faded to read from, and even a creepy-looking doll tossed aside in one of the bedrooms.

Renzou snickers to himself as he toes the doll aside. “Very typical. That’s cheesy, even for a B-rated movie.”

He leaves the doll behind and instead makes his way to the one room left unopened. It’s a little study sequestered off from one of the bedrooms, and judging by the untouched footstool before the door, he figures that the Okumura twins must have missed it. He hums quietly to himself as he nudges the footstool aside, then reaches a hand down to the doorknob to ease it open. Surprisingly, the door opens easily.

However, it gets caught on something. The mysterious something seems to be on the other side of the door, and Renzou’s humming stops as he frowns. He leans his shoulder up against the door and tries to push it open, managing to get a few inches before the damn thing finally gives way. He lets out a sigh-turned laugh, and creeps into the room.

His foot hits a body.

Renzou realizes this slowly. The first thing he registers is the feeling of something firm against his shoe, and as he looks down, blank and vacant eyes stare back up at him. All at once, his heart seems to stop. As if to make things worse, yet another thing hits him: the smell.

His stomach immediately rebels as the scent of death and decay drifts up his nose, and he slaps a hand over his nose, eyes wide as he fights down a dry heave. The body isn’t alone—of course it isn’t. The floor is covered in bodies, in various states of decay and decomposition, and God, the  _ smell. _

__ A flash of red catches his eyes, and he looks up, horrified, to see words scrawled on the wall.

_ ‘Six days until it comes. Sacrifice one, and you can leave.’ _

__ That’s the final straw. With another muffled gag, he back pedals out of the room, yanking the door shut as quickly as he can. The door slams closed, but the sight of the bodies- men, women,  _ children  _ -feel seared into his eyelids. He can still see them.

He’s going to throw up.

Renzou realizes this just as Shiemi comes crashing into the room, asking after him. He waves her aside, feeling the fever rush of bile prickling at the back of his throat. She, thankfully, backs out of his way quickly enough for him to reach one of the bathrooms. He still won’t touch the dirty toilets, but he certainly will throw up all over them.

It’s only when there’s nothing left to come up that he registers the feeling of Shiemi’s gentle hand against his back, easing the trembling of his body. “Better?” she asks him, when he finally backs away from the damn bowl. 

“No,” he groans, miserably. “What the  _ fuck  _ was that?”

“I can see why the house is abandoned now,” Godaiin’s voice drifts in from the hallway, sounding just as nauseous as Renzou still feels. 

“What is it?” Rin yells up the staircase. He sounds far too curious for Renzou’s liking.

“You don’t wanna see it, man!” Renzou shouts back, hoarsely. “Seriously! Stay the hell down there!”

Shiemi reaches a hand down to his forehead, and her fingertips are blissfully cool enough that he leans into her palm and lets his eyes slip shut. There’s the sound of footsteps closeby, and a familiar scoff follows them.

“Don’t be too nice to him,” Izumo remarks, and he can just imagine the vaguely distasteful look she’s giving him.

“So cruel,” Renzou sighs. She’s a helpful distraction, at least. “Don’t I get a break this time?”

“Nope.” She pops the ‘p’ in the word. “Miwa-kun and Ryuji are still chanting, so we’re still on guard.”

“I think I know what it is,” Renzou says, leaning down to sit on the floor as Shiemi keeps an arm around his back. He gives her a grateful look before looking at Izumo. “It’s gotta be a ghost or somethin’, there can’t be that many bodies and no ghosts.”

“Are ghosts demons?” Godaiin asks from behind her, nervous and a little green in the face.

“They can be, sometimes,” Izumo answers. “Not always.”

“If it’s a ghost, then we just need to fulfill it’s last wish and it’ll move on, right?” Shiemi asks the three of them. Renzou thinks of the phrase on the wall and shakes his head rather violently.

“I don’t think we can do that here,” he says, trying to fight down the sight of the bloody message. At the three confused looks he gets in returns, he elaborates, though reluctantly. “There was somethin’ on the wall written in blood, I think. It said ‘sacrifice one and you can leave’.”

The dots are starting to connect into something ugly—the message and the room of bodies, the resistant floors and ceilings, the sealed doors and windows. A creeping, twisting feeling of dread starts to pool in his stomach, and he almost feels nauseous again.

“It might just be a prank, right?” Godaiin asks. “I mean, with everyone seeing demons these days, there’s a bunch of copycats and all. Kids who think they’re funny.”

Shiemi nods along, trying to force a smile. “Right! It might just be Halloween decorations from some Americans, right?”

“I sure hope so,” Renzou says beneath his breath. 

Despite Izumo’s scoff and rolled eyes, both she and Shiemi help him up from the ground and out of the bathroom. He’s able to get to the stairs by himself, of course, but at the sight of the room with the offending off-branching study, he nearly feels nauseous again. He makes it down the stairs as quickly as he can.

When they finally return to the rest of the group, it’s to the frustrated looks of Yukio, Ryuji, and Konekomaru as they’re deep in conversation.

“...the entire book, there ain’t anything left,” Ryuji says, frowning. “If it’s Sir Pheles’ kin, we woulda caught it.”

Yukio shakes his head, brows furrowed. “Then what else could it possibly be? It doesn’t seem consistent with any other aspects we know of.”

“So it could be an unaffiliated demon,” Konekomaru cuts in.

“Uh, hey, guys?” Renzou calls. “News from upstairs.”

When the attention of the room turns to him, Renzou shifts a bit uncomfortably, but begins the retelling of what exactly he’d found upstairs. He finds comfort in the disturbed looks on his friends’ faces when he gives the quick details of the room, trying to skim over as much of the gore as he can. It’s nice to know that he hadn’t overreacted, after all.

“That certainly changes a lot,” Yukio murmurs, when Renzou finishes his story. “Shiemi-san, you suspect it’s a ghost?”

She flushes a bit as the group turns towards her, but nods anyways. “I think so? It reminds me of the little boy from the amusement park.”

“It makes some sense,” Konekomaru says, eyes widening a bit. “The bodies, the house, and everything. It fits, doesn’t it?”

“What if it’s a curse, though?” Paku asks. She shifts a bit, nervously. “I’ve heard about them before, you know.”

Paku nods, looking equally as unsettled. “Yeah, those words on the wall? Maybe it’s not a prank, maybe it  _ is  _ a curse.”

“And what if it is?” Izumo laughs incredulously. “What are we supposed to do, murder someone so we can get out of the house?”

It’s meant to be a joke, and at any other time, they might have laughed, but it’s too likely to be true for them to comfortably think about. Even so, Rin gives an anxious sort of chuckle.

“That’s ridiculous, isn’t it? That’s like, a cheap horror story plot, right? Not real life?” he asks. He doesn’t look like he’s convincing even himself. 

As much as they’d all like to deny the possibility, there’s a running undercurrent of doubt;  _ what if it really is a curse?  _ Curses were incredibly uncommon in the world of exorcism, but the few that existed were strong and nigh unbreakable. The only surefire way to escape one was to comply with the terms.

But murder?

The sun begins to dip in the sky, and the only sound in the house is that of tense silence.

* * *

“You don’t think it’s really a curse, do you?” Rin asks his brother, late in the night when the rest of their friends have already fallen into a restless sleep.

Yukio opens his mouth to reply, but then closes it, and Rin’s frown deepens at the hesitance he can feel rolling off of his twin. It’s dark, but his hand seeks out Yukio’s, and squeezes his fingers. Yukio squeezes his hand back, and it’s as reassuring as it is unsettling. It’s not often that his twin gives in to his anxious requests for affection, but in this situation, he knows it doesn’t mean anything good.

“I’m not sure,” Yukio admits, quietly. “It… doesn’t look as if there are many other explanations.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to figure out how to break it, huh?” Rin gives a shaky smile, but no one knows it’s there save for himself. He believes that somehow, Yukio knows that it’s there. His fingers are squeezed again, but no reply comes forward, and the house is quiet once more. 


	4. day four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does a gay littel dance and hands u this

Yukio is woken from his sleep by the sound of something… sliding across the floor. He opens his eyes and blinks when he is greeted by the sight of darkness; it isn’t nearly late enough in the morning for anyone to be awake, which only confuses him more. He reaches a hand out to search for his glasses and slips then on, leaning up from the floor to see what’s making the noise.

As awareness starts to come back to him, he realizes that the sound isn’t that of sliding. It’s more like rustling, and almost whispering. He looks over at the other teens scattered around him and sees all of them fast asleep—even Ryuji, who is normally up even earlier than yukio usually is. He looks around the room instead, trying to figure out where the hell the noise is coming from. Had a mouse managed to sneak in?

He freezes when he finally sees it.

There are a pair of eyes looking at him, and as soon as Yukio makes contact with them, he feels his entire body stop. The eyes belong to a corpse, with great locks of hair that peel forth from its skull and dangle forward into its yellowed eyes, lacking even eyelids to keep them in place. The corpse leans up against the wall, mouth moving and whispering even with holes of decay in its lips and face.

Yukio cannot gasp, or even make a noise, or even move to wake anyone else. If he moves, it’ll kill him. He doesn’t know why, but between the shortness of his breath and the pounding of his heart, he is sure of it.

_ “...curse,” _ it’s saying.  _ “the curse the curse obey the curse break the curse the curse-” _

It crawls forward, on arms that bend every wrong way and on legs mangled by years of death. Its breath is visible, cool and foggy, and its eyes seem to peer into him as it  _ fwump, draaaaag… fwump, draaag… fwump, draaaags _ itself forward on one arm.

_ “-one or i’ll kill you all kill one or i’ll kill you all,”  _ it breathes, oozes blood and yellow fluids onto the floor.  _ “one or all one or all one or all-” _

The spell is broken by the sickening  _ crunch-splat _ of Shima’s khakkara through the top of its head. Yukio gasps in a breath, just in time for Shima to wrench his staff free and kick the corpse back into the wall. His pajama-clad legs block Yukio from seeing the body, but he hears a groan and a shuddering sigh, and then silence.

“Teach?” Shima looks back at him, eyes wide and khakkara trembling in his hands. “You good?”

“Yukio?”

He feels Rin’s hands at his back, and at the same time, Shima kneels down in front of him, a hand at his shoulder, and the contact shakes off whatever is left of what had him frozen. His breath comes in short and uneven, and with it, an oncoming sense of fear—with nothing left but the corpse’s words, there is little he can do but process them.

“Are you okay?” Rin asks him, rubbing at his back. His voice is heavy with concern. “Yukio?”

“It- It was saying something,” he manages to stammer, eyes wide. “It was the curse, it was repeating the curse.”

“Do you think it was possessed?” Shima asks, looking over his shoulder at it. “Maybe there’s a ghost here? I think- I think that was one of the bodies I saw in the room upstairs.”

“It could be,” Yukio forces himself to say. Thinking makes it easier; analyzing makes things simpler. “If it is, then… then we’ll need to exorcise it. Complying with its last wishes is out of the question.”

“Yeah, we’re not gonna kill someone over some ghost,” Shima snickers. He reaches a hand out to help him up, and once the three of them are standing, he can finally see the corpse again. It’s still gruesome to look at, but it hasn’t moved since Shima stabbed it, and that gives him some hope. It’s possible then that the ghost isn’t able to maintain its presence there permanently, and they may have some to get a ritual going before it has the energy to return. They’ll get rid of it, and then they’ll finally be free of this ridiculous house.

From there, they quickly rouse the other members of their group, and share the morning’s events with them. Whatever sleepiness in their eyes at their abrupt waking so early in the morning is quickly eradicated when Yukio details how the ghost had possessed the corpse, had threatened them and had to be killed by Shima.

“Are we sure it’s a ghost?” Ryuji’s brow is heavy with his frown.

“What makes you think it might not be?” Yukio asks.

“Well, think about it,” he continues. “If it were a ghost, wouldn’t there be a bunch of ‘em? I mean, Shima saw the room. There were dozens of bodies in there, and wouldn’t we have a bigger haunting on our hands if it was?”

“It could be a ghoul,” Konekomaru points out. “We know they possess dead bodies, so it very well could just be a particularly resistant one.”

Rin’s expression turns to one of visible worry, and he hugs his arms to his stomach. “What do we do, then? Didn’t we already run through the whole Bible?”

“Only parts of it, Koneko and I didn’t read the whole thing.”

“We could try a united attack, on a few fronts,” Yukio suggests. “We have verses, Shima’s khakkara, my guns, and various summons. We can try to aggravate whatever it is, draw it out, and then destroy it from there.”

“What if it’s something stronger? Should we really drag it out without knowing what it is?” Izumo asks, thumbing at her pocket. Tension is heavy in her shoulders, and it simmers in the air between all of them. The corpse, still lying against the wall, is a jarring reminder that whatever they’re dealing with, it certainly isn’t friendly.

But even despite the risk of drawing the spirit out, they know that they have to take it. They’re running out of options, resources, and time. They’re running low on what little remains of their food and water, and with dual enemies in hunger and thirst, fear is running just as high as aggravation. They’re eager to be free of the household, and so a decision is made; they’ll draw the spirit out. 

The first step of which is to clear the living room. Rin and Godaiin clean the trash and food, and push their sleeping bags to the side and out of the way. As they do so, Shima cleans the remaining gore from his khakkara, and Yukio prepares what little ammo he has left. Izumo and Shiemi pull forth Nii, Uke, and Mike, while Konekomaru and Ryuji compile what chapters and books of the Bible that they have memorized. Once Godaiin is free, he and Paku step to the side, safely out of the way as the time finally comes to enact their plan.

The second step of their plan is to draw it out. They don’t know what it is they’re dealing with, so they try a multi-faceted approach; blood, and an offering. It isn’t difficult to find a rodent in the house, and after Uke and Mike chase it free from one of the side rooms, Renzou quickly kills it with a pass through of Yamantaka’s flames. There is no shortage of grumbling and complaining from the demons about the disrespect of it all, to use their powers for something so menial, but they have what they need.

Next is a blood sacrifice. Rin grimaces when the time comes, but knows that his healing allows him to do what the others can’t. Yukio offers him a clean blade from the first aid kit he has stashed away in his bag, and with a sigh, Rin gets to work.

The center of the living room becomes a gruesome sight. Blood, still wet and shining, is splattered across the floor across and around the mangled body of the rat—alongside a handful of others that Uke and Mike had killed, just to prove that they could. It’s an offering fit to summon any present demon forth, and the group looks upon it warily as Konekomaru and Ryuji begin to execute part three; recitation.

The verses of Satan’s fall from heaven are known to aggravate demons of all sorts, and so the two of them split the collection in half, murmuring at the same time as the rest prepare themselves for what, exactly, they don’t know. It could be an attack, or nothing at all. It could be a ghoul, or a ghost, or something else altogether.

Or, as Rin’s face switches from uneasiness to something blank and unseeing, just seconds before he collapses limply, it could be a possession.

“Rin?!” Shiemi dives forward to catch him before he hits the bloodied wood panels, just barely managing to protect his head as his body weight pulls them both tumbling onto the floor. Wide-eyed, she pulls him close to her, sweeping his bangs out of his eyes frantically. “He’s out cold!”

Yukio is at her side in the blink of an eye, his guns falling to the ground as he couches down to feel for a pulse at Rin’s neck. When he manages to find one, though weak and inconsistent, he turns a hard look to both Konekomaru and Ryuji. “It’s likely just blood loss. Keep going!”

Ryuji, though clearly reluctant, is the first to continue, closing his eyes as the verses fall from his lips once more. Konekomaru takes longer to do the same; it’s only when Paku lays a reassuring hand on his shoulder that he continues.

“I’ll let you know if he gets worse,” she murmurs to him, and he gives a shaky nod.

Godaiin steps forward from his assigned place at the wall to kneel by Shiemi and Rin, hands shaking but eyes determined. “You all need to be ready. I’ll take him.”

Shiemi frowns heavily, but as she looks up at Yukio, they both make eye contact. Neither of them speak a word, but they seem to communicate, anyway. Neither of them want to leave Rin, but they both have a role to fulfill if they want to get out of the house. Yukio stands and begins to gather his guns from the floor, as Shiemi carefully hands Rin off. Godaiin situates his friend onto his lap, holding Rin close and keeping him bundled up within his arms.

Shiemi and Yukio return to their positions, though as they do so, Izumo breaks free from the line. She rifles around within her bag and procures a handful of candies, holding them within her hands as she carries them over to Godaiin. Though confused, he takes the candies

“Give them to him if he wakes up,” she instructs. “It’ll help with his blood sugar.”

Godaiin nods, and places the candies onto the floor beside him as Izumo returns back to the larger group. As the sound of murmuring fills the room, he looks down at Rin, brows heavy with worry. Rin’s eyes are still closed, and he hasn’t even twitched since his initial fall. Godaiin runs a gentle hand over his cheek, patting lightly in an attempt to wake him up gently. It does nothing, but as Godaiin leans back to try to figure out how to wake his friend, he suddenly notices something almost like tears falling from Rin’s eyes.

“Rin…?” he murmurs, confused. He wipes the tears from Rin’s face, but they keep coming, trickling down like small rivers. The area beneath his eyes is red, and growing redder, like he had been crying for days and not just seconds. 

Suddenly, the sound of rustling comes. Godaiin’s head jerks up, but when he looks at the others, he realizes that no one else has heard it over Konekomaru and Ryuji’s chanting. But the rustling is growing louder, and it sounds almost like the clattering of window shutters, like floorboards creaking and wood bending. It’s only seconds later that the the floor begins to feel like it’s rumbling, and then the group begins to notice the almost shivering of the house.

The chanting stops, and Godaiin looks at the others fearfully, hoping that at least one of them will know whatever demon is coming forth. Rin begins to shift in his arms, and it brings him a sense of relief; if something is coming, then he knows they’ll need Rin’s help to fight it. The fear of the rising sound of chattering wood hits him like a punch to the stomach, like cramping and sharp things and losing his breath.

But the feeling is much more physical, and growing stronger. Something tastes like blood at the back of his mouth, and he looks down at his stomach. There is a hand there, through his stomach.

Rin’s hand is there. Through his stomach.

He looks down at where Rin’s forearm is hilted through his abdomen, and blood falls from his lips to splatter against Rin’s skin. There’s something like breathing in his face, the soft sound of growling, the scattering of black in his eyes. Then, he sees the window, the ceiling, and then nothing. Nothing at all.

* * *

“Godaiin!” 

Paku leaps forward from Konekomaru’s side, diving between and around the others to get to him. Izumo is just behind her, and when Paku reaches forward to catch Godaiin as he passes out, the other girl lunges for Rin. She grabs him by the shoulder, wrenches him back and away as his jaws snap down animalistically around the area that Godaiin had just been. He tumbles back to the floor and turns white, blank eyes up at her, teeth bared and muscles poised to jump. 

She’s ready, though. If anyone could compete with Rin for pure demonic strength, Izumo can, and she catches his wrists before he can claw through her. His teeth snap at her again, and she leans back, but her fingers slip around the blood and gore coated onto his wrist from Godaiin’s stomach. She turns a heated glare to Shima, who flinches uselessly at her wordless threat.

“Come help me!” she snaps.

He yelps and jumps into movement, brandishing his khakkara as Izumo tries to force Rin far enough away for Shima to take him down. She manages to get some distance between them, just in time for Shima to swing his staff around to smash into Rin’s face. He howls, stumbling backwards. Shima takes point in front of Izumo, and with a grunt, black flames light up along his staff. Sweat forms on his brow from the concentration it takes; his endurance is running out, and he can only keep Yamantaka up for so long.

But when he expects Rin—or whatever is possessing him—to come charging forwards again, he only gets the sight of Rin shaking off the blow, blood beading on his lips from his bruised and surely broken nose. He looks up, eyes milky white, and speaks with reddened teeth.

“You have three days,” he hisses, voice warped and warbling. “Three days! Make your choice!”

“Choice of what?” Yukio demands, guns brandished as he stands before Ryuji and Konekomaru. “Tell us who you are! What do you want?”

The question only makes the spirit possessing Rin angrier, and blue fire sparks at his hands. “Sacrifice! It’s on the wall, it’s written on the wall! Sacrifice! One of you must die!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Yukio laughs, spiteful. “We’re not killing anyone!”

“Then you’ll never leave,” he snaps. “I’ll kill each and every one of you! Make your choice!”

Before any of them can say a word more, Rin’s eyes roll up, his body falls, and the house falls silent. 

The only sound in the following silence is that of their heavy breathing. Each of them are frozen in place, both too fearful and too stunned to move. The only one who does, eventually, take a step forward is Paku, who nervously kneels down by Rin and feels at his neck. She gives a sigh when she feels a pulse, and that seems to break the spell.

“What the fuck was  _ that?” _ Izumo asks, hysterical. “That wasn’t a ghost!”

“It still could be!” Ryuji argues. “If it was possessin’ people, it ain’t got a permanent body here in Assiah! It didn’t take the rats, either, so it ain’t a ghoul!”

Shima clears his throat, knelt down by Godaiin. “Uh, hello? Guy dying!”

Yukio shoves his guns away into his shirt and drags up the first aid kit again, making his way over to Godaiin and kneeling down. The blood around Godaiin only grows steadily larger, and his eyes are closed, unmoving, as Yukio grabs the gauze in the first aid kit to try to slow the bleeding. It’s futile, but he makes the effort anyways, eyes wide and determined as he puts down as much pressure as he can, packing the wound. 

Izumo, however, paces the floor restlessly. “Did you hear what that freak said? It said it was gonna kill us all! Are we not gonna address that?”

“It could do it,” Konekomaru says. His expression is uneasy as he holds on to Ryuji’s sleeve, who doesn’t look much better. “I mean, if it could possess Rin, it could possess any of us, and I mean… look at how much damage it just did the first time!”

“What, so we just give up and kill someone ourselves?” Paku asks, incredulous.

Shiemi looks teary-eyed already, her fists clenched tight. “There has to be another way.”

“What other way? We’ve tried everything!” Izumo throws her hands up, frustrated. “We’ve tried breaking out, we’ve tried killing the demon, we’ve tried exorcising it, we’ve tried everything!”

“Do you seriously wanna kill one of us so bad?” Shima asks. Though the question is barbed, it comes from fear; his eyes are wide, and his hands are sweaty around Godaiin’s body. 

It hurts Izumo, in a way. “Of course I don’t! I’m not- I’m not a monster, but what option do we have? It wants to kill all of us!”

“Godaiin will die if we don’t get him real medical attention,” Yukio says, quietly, from the floor. “We’re running out of food and water, and there isn’t anything in this house. Whatever decision we make, we need to make it quickly.”

“Decide quickly on  _ murdering  _ someone?” Paku says, brows furrowed. “We- That’s ridiculous!”

“I don’t want to have to say it, but it’s the truth,” Yukio mutters. “We’re running out of time, as well.”

“We can wait a day,” Konekomaru cuts in, still nervous but asserting himself firmly. “We can think about it, okay? We can decide on whatever we want to do tomorrow, but Rin is still out, and Godaiin is hurt. We should focus on that for now.”

Nobody speaks up, because nobody dares to put voice to the reality pressing in on them. They have only three days left, after all.

Three days to decide who would die, or they all would.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and criticisms are greatly appreciated!


End file.
